“You are going to be fine,” Jack assured her.
Finally, there was the same reception counter guarded by Marlene Wilson, a kind African-American woman whose flawless complexion belied her years and whose attitude was always happy and welcoming.
“Dr. Montgomery!” Marlene exclaimed, catching sight of Laurie. “Welcome back,” she cried with obvious glee. Without a second’s hesitation, she slipped from her stool and came out from behind the desk to give Laurie a forceful hug. Laurie was initially taken aback by Marlene’s enthusiasm, but she quickly relaxed and let herself enjoy the warm welcome. It was a good thing, because Marlene’s reaction to seeing Laurie was to be repeated by just about everyone Laurie would encounter throughout the day.
Inside the ID room where relatives were confronted by photos of the dead or the body itself if they insisted, Laurie and Jack found Dr. Arnold Besserman, who’d been working at OCME for thirty-some-odd years. As it was his turn to be the on-call medical examiner, he was sitting at the old, dented metal ID desk, checking through the most recent arrivals. It was immediately obvious it had been a quiet night in the Big Apple, as there was only a short stack of case files for him to deal with.
Like Marlene, although not quite so ardent, Arnold got up as soon as Laurie appeared and gave her a welcoming hug.
Also in the room was Vinnie Amendola, one of the mortuary techs. He regularly came in a half-hour early to transition from the two night techs, but really what he did was make the communal coffee in an institution-size drip coffee machine. He had to wait for Arnold for his turn to greet Laurie, then retreated to one of the old leather club chairs and his copy of the
“What do we have today?” Jack asked as he followed Arnold back to the desk.
“Not much,” Arnold said vaguely. He knew full well what Jack was up to—namely, cherry-picking cases— which had always rubbed him the wrong way in contrast to all the other medical examiners, who forgave Jack this habit since he always did more cases than anyone else. Animosity had simmered between the two because Jack saw Arnold as a slacker who was merely putting in his time, doing as little as possible, certainly not carrying his weight, to reach retirement age, affording maximum pension.
Despite a threatening look from Arnold, Jack started pawing through the case files, checking each one quickly for the circumstances of death, such as GSW (gunshot wound), hospital-based if unexpected, accident, suicide, murder, or somehow suspicious.
With his hands on his hips and a frustrated, impatient expression on his face, Arnold let the whistling Jack continue with no attempt of assistance, which he could have given, since he’d already gone through the cases himself.
Still absorbed in his rapid assessment of the day’s autopsy workload, Jack became aware of another occupant in the room. In one of the club chairs facing the radiator was another male figure scrunched down so that just the top of his hat could be seen over the back of the chair. The only other parts of his body that were visible were his scuffed shoes, which were balanced on top of the radiator cover.Thinking the hat and shoes could belong only to one person, Jack dropped the case files, rounded the desk, and walked over to where he could glance down at the sleeping figure. As he’d suspected, it was a long-time friend, the recently promoted Detective Captain Lou Soldano.
“Look who’s here!” Jack called out to Laurie, who was busy making herself a cup of coffee to her liking.
Laurie immediately walked over and, standing next to Jack, joined him in gazing down at Lou. Not much of Lou’s face was visible, as he had his hat tipped down to cover most of it. His arms were crossed on his chest. Over them was an open newspaper. His coat was on but unbuttoned and trailing on the floor. He was breathing deeply but not snoring, and the open newspaper across his chest rose and fell rhythmically.
“He must be exhausted,” Laurie remarked like the mother she now was.
“He’s always exhausted,” Jack said. He reached down to tip Lou’s hat back to expose his face, but Laurie grabbed his arm and pulled it back.
“Let him sleep!”
“Why?”
“As I said, he must be exhausted.”
“He’s here for a reason,” Jack remarked as he pulled his hand free from Laurie’s grip and gently lifted Lou’s hat off the sleeping policeman. “The sooner he gets into a real bed, the better.”
With his face now visible, Lou appeared the picture of absolute repose, despite the surroundings. He also looked exhausted, with dark circles under his somewhat sunken eyes. The dark circles were even apparent with the man’s deep complexion. He was handsome in a masculine, muscular fashion: a man’s man, clearly Italian. His clothes were disheveled and rumpled, as if he’d been in them for days, and it appeared he’d not shaved for an equivalent amount of time.
“He’s been here as long as I have,” Arnold called from behind the desk.
“Hey, big guy!” Jack said, giving Lou’s shoulder a light shove. “Time to get you home to beddy-bye.”
Lou’s breathing changed its rhythm briefly, but he didn’t awaken.
“Let the poor man sleep, even for a short time.”
“Come on, my man,” Jack said, increasing the force on Lou’s shoulder and ignoring Laurie.
Everyone jumped when Lou suddenly sat bolt upright, his feet hitting the floor with a solid thump. His eyes had gone from fully closed to fully open such that the whites could be seen all around his irises. Before anyone could respond, he caught sight of Laurie. “Hey, Laurie! What a surprise! I thought it was next week you were going to start work.” With a slight wobble, he got to his feet and enveloped Laurie in a big hug. “How’s the little one?”
Laurie recovered from having been startled and hugged Lou back despite his reeking of cigarette smoke. She had known Lou even longer than she’d known Jack, having met him the year she had started at OCME in the early nineties. They had even dated briefly before both realized they were more suited to be friends than lovers. Lou knew the whole difficult story of JJ better than anyone at OCME, as he was a regular visitor to the Stapleton home.
After a bit more personal talk, Jack asked Lou what he was doing at OCME, which Lou insisted on calling “the morgue.” Although Lou knew that OCME was a lot more than a morgue and that the actual morgue was only a small part of the operation, he still couldn’t change, and Jack had given up getting him to do so.
“There’s a case I want you to do for me,” Lou began. “The incident happened in Queens, but I threw my weight around and got the body brought here instead of being taken to the Queens office. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Me mind?” Jack questioned humorously. “Not on your life. Now, Bingham may throw a fit as a stickler for rules, and our man in Queens might have his feelings hurt that you didn’t think he could handle it, but I’m certain he’ll be able to put it behind him before retirement.”
Lou chuckled. “Will it be that bad?”
“I sincerely doubt it, at least not with Dick Katzenburg.”
“Katzenburg won’t mind in the slightest,” Laurie threw in. She’d had lots of opportunity to work with the chief of the Queens office. The New York OCME had four physical locations, with 519 First Avenue serving Manhattan and the Bronx, and with separate offices in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island serving their own boroughs.
“It was a GSW,” Lou began.
“Hey, Arnold!” Jack called out. “Can I do the gunshot victim?” Ultimately, as the on-call ME, it was Arnold’s choice which case was to be assigned to which pathologist. Some people had specific preferences, especially if they were doing a study on a specific forensic issue. Other people had specific dislikes, and no one liked unpleasant decomposed corpses, which were doled out on a semi-rotating basis.
“No skin off my nose,”Arnold said gruffly as he passive-aggressively tossed the case file toward Jack as if he were throwing a Frisbee. Not unexpectedly, some of the contents flew out, forcing Jack to retrieve them. “Sorry,” Arnold said, being anything but sincere.
